But really, a bowtie?
by Leisey
Summary: A little problem with the Sontarans sees the Doctor and Donna getting help from Eleven and the Ponds. Post Library story. Eleven/River.


**This is my first ever Doctor Who fic, so I apologise if it's horrible. It came from the idea of 'What would Ten think if he knew Eleven married River?' and I just have a lot of Eleven/River and Donna feels. So, please review so I know whether this is up to standard! x**

**"But really, a bowtie?"**

There really was an outrageous amount of running involved.

Donna raced after the Doctor, her hand clasped in his as they evaded the Sontaran that decided he would kill them for the glory of Sontar.

"You just _had_ to pick the planet with the invasion of the potatoes didn't you?!" Donna spat out as they wheeled around another corner.

"Well, I was aiming for Space Florida-"

"-Save it, Spaceman!"

They reached the place where the Doctor had parked the TARDIS, only to find that the blue box was nowhere to be seen. Donna's heart plummeted as her fear increased; meanwhile the Doctor just stared dumbfounded at where his beloved time machine was parked not even half an hour earlier.

"What?!" He spluttered, whirling around in a circle, his brown coat swirling out behind him. "It's gone! Where-"

"Doctor, what do we do?" Donna demanded.

"The TARDIS- where's the TARDIS?!"

"Doctor!"

"Running away from battle is the most dishonourable thing a solider can do," came the sudden voice of the Sontaran from behind them. "Now turn and face me so I can see the look on your faces when I kill you in the name of the Sontaran Empire!"

The Doctor and Donna froze. "Doctor?!" Donna whispered, looking for instructions, hoping he had a plan; That the TARDIS would reappear, that the Doctor would have some clever remark and they'd fly out of there unharmed. But he said nothing. "Doctor?!" she repeated desperately.

"Just turn and put your hands up," he said softly.

What? That couldn't be right. The Doctor wouldn't just admit defeat. She'd seen him face down countless terrifying aliens and come out unscathed, and he was just surrendering to a _potato with a gun?! _

But he was slowly turning around with his hands in the air and Donna had no choice but to follow suit. She was afraid, but she found herself accepting her death easily. She had found the Doctor again and she had seen the stars, just like she had promised Gramps she would.

"Thanks for everything, Spaceman," she said.

"Now just wait a minute," the Doctor said, and Donna wasn't sure if he was speaking to her or the Sontaran with the gun pointed at their faces. "What do the Sontarans want with this planet?" Okay. Right. The Doctor was doing his 'maybe I can talk my way out of this' thing again.

"The Stratagem is not to be told to enemies of Sontar. Prepare yourselves for death."

Donna shut her eyes, waiting for 'zap!' and then nothing. But suddenly there was the beautifully impossible sound of the TARDIS materializing. Donna looked at the Doctor in shock as the police box appeared all around them and they suddenly found themselves in the control room.

Except… it wasn't _their_ TARDIS' control room.

They found themselves in a room filled with warm orange light, the TARDIS' console situated on a glass floor with stairs that ran off in different directions, leading onto hallways that stretched out of sight. But what drew their attention was the man at the controls: dressed in dark pants and boots, with a red and white stripey shirt, suspenders, tweed jacket and – was that a bowtie? – he struck Donna and the Doctor speechless as he set the TARDIS flying again, finished with the controls and ran down to them.

"Ha, ha! It worked!" He exclaimed. He turned away from them and looked up at a three people who were also standing near the controls, but up until that moment Donna hadn't paid them the slightest attention. "Ponds! Didn't I tell you it would work?!"

A lady with outrageously blonde, curly hair stepped forward and Donna nearly choked as she tried to cover up her noise of surprise. That was _River_! Professor River Song; the lady who sacrificed herself in the Library. Donna glanced sideways at the Doctor and saw that he too was staring at River. His face ranged in emotions: confusion, shock, guilt, and a terrible, terrible sadness, before settling back into neutral.

The two people standing beside River were a couple; Donna could tell that much by how close they were standing with one another. The other lady had fiery red hair – Donna approved – and the man had a bit of a large nose, if Donna was completely honest. But she returned her attention to River as she spoke: "Yes, dear, but don't you think you're being a bit hard on yourself?"

"What?" The man in front of them said, turning back to the Doctor and Donna. "No! He understands!"

"Well I don't!" Donna fired up. "Who are you?! Where are we?! And Riv-"

"-Uh, don't mention the Library." The other man interrupted. "She hasn't got up to that yet. Spoilers."

"I – she – what?" Donna spluttered.

"Oh, Donna!" The man said, enveloping her in a hug. "It's good to see you!"

"Oi! Watch it! Let go of me! I don't know you! Who _are_ you?!"

"It's me," the Doctor said, speaking up for the first time since the TARDIS materialized around them. "It's me from the future."

"WHAT?!"

"It's me from the future. My next regeneration, I'm assuming?"

The future Doctor nodded, "The Eleventh."

"Right, so for Donna's sake let's just call you Eleven then." Another nod. "Okay then – I have one question-"

"-Why am I so blatantly crossing our timelines?"

Eleven cut Donna's Doctor – should she call him Ten, then? – off and she could see that he had been just about to explode in his Spaceman rage. He scowled and waited for Eleven to continue.

"All in good time – we're just floating in space at the moment, they won't catch us," Eleven said. "Ponds! River, Amy, Rory. Come down and say hello!"

The three by the controls came down for greetings and Donna had no idea how to feel. If these were the Doctor's companions in the future, where was she? It was the same question that burned in her mind at the Library. She had managed to push it out of her mind, but now it came roaring back, refusing to be ignored.

River walked up to the younger Doctor, a flirtatious smile on her face. "So this is you. You look so young."

"River," Eleven warned, and the archaeologist took a step back with a laugh, walking back to her husband's side.

"So this is you before fish fingers and custard, hey, Raggedy Man?" said Amy in her distinctive Scottish accent, looking him up and down.

"What?" said Ten, clearly confused. "Fish fingers and what? Raggedy what?"

There was a pause before Eleven, River, Amy and Rory all spoke in unison: "Spoilers."

Donna's Doctor growled in frustration. "Okay. Fine. You're here. It goes against all Time Lord laws, but you're here. But I've got some questions!"

"Lay 'em on me!" Eleven said. There was a pause and then, "Oh, that was horrible. I'm never saying that again."

"…Right," said Ten and Donna could see the thoughts in his expression: 'I turn into that?!'

"Your questions?" River prompted.

"Yes!" The Doctor pulled himself together. "Why are you here?"

"Weeell," Eleven said, sounding shockingly like Ten when he did it, "This is a fixed point."

"No!" Ten disagreed immediately. "That's impossible. The crossing of timeline's isn't even supposed to happen! They can't be _fixed_!"

"Wibbly wobbly, timey-wimey." Eleven said impatiently. "The Sontaran's had already transported your TARDIS to their main ship. You had no means of escape and not tools to stop the Stratagem. Enter: us."

"But how do we get out of this in order to be able to come and help in the future?" Donna asked.

"It's a fixed point." Eleven said. "We were always coming to get you. That is never going to change. And remember this," he said to his past self, "because one day you'll be travelling back to help you."

"Okay, who else is confused?" Rory inquired.

Donna raised her hand, "I am."

"Look, it doesn't matter," Eleven said, sounding impatient again. "The fact of the matter is that you're here, we need to take you onto the Sontaran ship so we can plant this-" he paused to pull a large flashing device with a lot of buttons out of his pocket. Donna had no idea how it fit in there, but she'd spent so long with the Doctor she just accepted that kind of thing now. "-so we can disarmed the main cloning chamber, with in turn will set off an electrical chain reaction that will defuse the nebulators-"

"Oi, Spaceman!" Donna interrupted. "Speak English!" He might have changed faces, but that didn't change the Martian techno babble that the Doctor would ramble on about for ages.

Eleven grinned, but on the inside those two little words felt like a knife in the heart. He hadn't been called 'Spaceman' in such a long time. "Basically," he said, ignoring the sadness like he so often did. "We plant this in the main cloning chamber and…" he finished his sentence with exploding sounds and matching hand movements.

"Right!" Ten said, and Donna saw him smile for the first time since arriving in the future TARDIS. "Allons-y!"

Eleven clapped him hands and he and his past self rushed to the controls. They worked in unison and in seconds they had programmed the TARDIS to land in the Sontaran's main ship.

"Best leave the breaks off, Sweetie." River advised.

"What?!" Ten asked, looking up from the controls.

"I know," said Eleven, "She takes all the fun out of it."

"And cloak it," River continued.

"Yes, yes, wiiiif.." The Eleventh Doctor trailed off and coughed.

"What was that?!" Donna's Doctor demanded in a whisper (and Donna couldn't deny her ears pricked up a bit at that too.) "What were you about the call her?"

"Spoilers," Eleven said, flipping a switch. "There was this time on this pyramid…"

Ten looked at him evenly and Donna looked back in forth between the two; hanging onto every word. "She knew our _name_," he said. "There's only one time we could-"

"- I know-"

"-So she's our-"

"-Yes-"

"But the Library, if she hasn't gone yet how can you let-?"

"-If she doesn't go, then we won't have met her and none of the things we've done would have ever happened. It was hard enough watching her sacrifice herself as you, handcuffed to the pole. Imagine how it feels now, just letting her go. Knowing your letting her walk into that fate."

"With nothing but a screwdriver to save her consciousness into a computer?!" Ten still couldn't understand how that's all his future self could come up with, no matter how 'very good' it was.

The Eleventh Doctor sighed and dropped his head. "I thought so much about that, about how I could have done better. But I already knew I was going to give her the screwdriver, to save her into CAL. If I changed it…"

Ten saw years of pain and self-hatred showing on his future regenerations face. "I know," he said. "I know."

Donna watched this exchange with a growing sense of sadness. Her mind flashing back to one of their last moments in the Library: _Is alright special Time Lord code for not really alright at all? _It seemed this Doctor wasn't 'alright' either. The pain was still real, perhaps even greater than it was during their time on the Library planet.

The two Doctor's intense conversation was stopped by a call from Amy, who was standing with River and Rory, holding onto the TARDIS' railings as the police box flew through space. "Oi, you guys alright over there."

_Alright_. Donna thought.

The Eleventh Doctor changed expressions: Going from heartbroken to jovial in a second, making Donna wonder how often he had had to hide the pain.

"Oh we're fine!" He said, "Junior here was just giving me slack about my clothing!"

Ten raised his eyebrows at the 'junior' call, but went along with the change in conversation. "But really, a bowtie?"

"Bowties are cool." Eleven said, fixing his as he spoke.

The TARDIS landed and the future Doctor clapped his hands again and raced towards the doors. "Come along, Ponds, Donna, Past Me."

"Are you going to check what's out there?" Ten asked.

"No time to lose," said Eleven. "Geronimo!"

A quick glance at the TARDIS monitor told Ten that the coast was clear outside, so he nodded to Donna and they followed River, Amy and Rory to the TARDIS doors. "How are we going to find the other TARDIS?" Donna asked.

"We'll be able to sense it," Ten and Eleven chorused.

"And if there's any Sontarans out there?" Rory asked.

"Don't worry, Mr. Pond," Eleven said. "We've got the best weapon in the universe."

"And that would be…?"

"Your daughter: River Song."

River just smiled smugly, but Donna stopped in her tracks. "Hold on. Did you just say 'daughter'?"

"Wibbly wobbly, timey-wimey," the Eleventh Doctor said again, before poking his head outside. "Coast is clear. Come along, gang. Ohh, I like the sound of that 'gang.'"

"Doctor." River said, getting him focused again.

"Right. Sorry…" He turned to his past regeneration. "Well, Past Me. Can you sense Her?"

Ten licked his finger and put it in the air, like he was testing what way the wind was coming from. "The TARDIS is this way," he said after a moment and headed left down the hall. "And remember," he said as he walked, "If you see a Sontaran, aim for the probic vent at the back of their neck."

As they walked through the ship, Eleven took his strange, anti-cloning-pod contraption back out of his jacket pocket. "As soon as you get to the TARDIS – leave. We'll plant the explodey-wodey device and then run back to our TARDIS and then everyone goes back to their respective times all safe, happy and not grievously injured. Especially Rory the Roman – he's died too many times already."

"Can we please not talk about me dying while we're walking through a hostile alien ship?" Rory sounded resigned.

"HALT IN THE NAME OF THE SONTARAN EMPIRE!" Voices shouted from behind them.

A pause and then: "Run," said Eleven.

They took off down the hall, with the Sontarans in pursuit. "So I see you never got over the running thing!" Donna shouted at Ten as she clung onto his hand as they ran.

The reached a shut door, which Eleven soniced open. Ten noticed the new screwdriver.

"A new one?" He said, quite fond of his trusty blue sonic screwdriver.

"A new one – run!" His future self herded them through the door before sonicing it shut and locking it. They ran through more corridors before Eleven came to a sudden halt. "Here's the main cloning chamber!" He attached his device to the wall and started pressing buttons furiously.

"It that literally a bomb?!" Donna demanded.

"No! It's an electrical-"

"TURN AND FACE ME SO I MAY KILL YOU FOR THE GLORY OF SONTARA!" A lone Sotaran appeared down the end of the hall.

"River!" Eleven called, still pressing buttons.

"On it!" The sound of gunfire filled the hall. The Sontaran fell.

After a few more buttons, the Doctor announced: "Done!" Seconds later, the sound of explosions came from all sides. "And that would be the cloning chambers blowing up. Time to go."

They ran on, both Doctors sensing Ten's TARDIS getting closer. They continued down more corridors. River shot at any Sontaran that got in their way. She didn't miss.

"There is it!" Ten exclaimed. They found themselves on the ships main deck, only to be the targets of five Sontarans. Ten pointed his sonic at the force field around his TARDIS, which disappeared in a shower of sparks. "Ignore the guns – everybody in!"

River shot a few more rounds to give everyone cover as they piled into the police box. When they were all safely in, Ten and Eleven started using the controls at incredible speed.

"Oh, I haven't used these in a while!" Eleven said gleefully.

"Would you stop being a nostalgic idiot and get us out of here?!" River shouted.

"Just a quick jump!" Cried Ten.

There was the familiar sound of the TARDIS taking off, only to stop a few seconds later. Even from the outside they could hear the explosions of the Sontaran cloning pods.

"Our TARDIS should be right outside! Come along, Ponds!" Eleven yelled, running towards the door. They all piled outside and the Doctor ran smack bang into the door of his invisible TARDIS. He staggered back a few steps, groaning. He really disliked having his Sexy Lady cloaked.

Ten held out a hand to his future self. "Thank you."

Eleven shook it. It was a strange feeling, to shake your own, but completely different hand. He then turned to Donna and gave her a big hug. "Donna Noble! You are brilliant! You are magnificent! I will miss you!"

She laughed, "You shouldn't – I'll be sticking with you for a long time yet!" And there, just for a second, the Doctor's smile slipped, but it happened so fast, replaced with such a smile that Donna wasn't even sure the Doctor stopped smiling in the first place.

Rory, Amy and River said their goodbyes, before entering the TARDIS. Eleven gave Donna one last hug and Ten a parting salute before saying "You watch us run!" and disappearing into his TARDIS as River piloted the police box away.

The Doctor barely had time to register that his future self had just quoted some of River's final words. He and Donna ran back into their TARDIS and he starting flicking switches faster than a Dalek would say 'EXTERMINATE' to someone who wasn't a Dalek. The Doctor didn't relax until he heard the familiar wooshing sound of the TARDIS dematerializing, meaning he and Donna were far away from the exploding Sontaran ship.

Donna let out a loud sigh of relief. "Well, Spaceman. That was certainly something."

The Doctor managed a smile. "Yeah. Yeah it was."

Donna sat down on the chair by the console. "I don't know where I am in your future, Doctor, and Eleven didn't say, but I tell you what – I'm going to be with you until I'm old and grey!"

The Doctor sat down beside her, "Oh Donna. Donna, Donna, Donna. You are and will be, absolutely brilliant!"

But little did they know, in a different TARDIS in a completely different section of space and in a completely different time, the Eleventh Doctor stood at the TARDIS' doors. His head rested against the wood and tears streamed down his face as he repeated: "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."


End file.
